PUERTO RICO IN CRISIS
Puerto Rico is experiencing very difficult times. Puerto Ricans of the mainland cannot remain idle while Luis Fortuño’s administration move forward with its widespread lay-off policy. This constitutes social and economic barbarism that will only serve to worsen the crisis in which the country is submerged. It will promote privatization of basic infrastructural services to thousands of Puerto Ricans, mostly the poor. Almost 20,000 civil servants already have or will be laid-off their jobs, putting at risk and hopelessness thousands of families affected directly and indirectly by this effort.

The colonial administrations, statehood and commonwealth supporters equally, are guilty of today’s suffocating working-class high taxes, the imposition of a sales tax and the partial or complete privatization of our national patrimonies. We cannot forget Pedro Rosselló’s administration, which privatized great part of our country, including fifty one percent (51%) of Puerto Rico Telephone Company and almost all health services providers throughout the Island. The Calderón Administration privatized the Authority of Aqueducts and Sewage, patrimony that we managed to rescue. To top it all, previous administrations efforts to sell Puerto Rico Telephone Company were concluded by the Acevedo Vilá administration. The transnational Mexican company America Mobil bought it. This unleashed a teacher’s strike, and an attempt to curtail workers rights and a few of the combatant unions in the Island. That same administration, along with the Legislative Assembly of the PNP, imposed the IVU tax and raised taxes to the working-class while exempting special interests from paying taxes. To make matters worse, certain North American unions, with the aim of internationalizing their businesses, have come down to the Island and have started negotiating our constitutional rights, curtailing the working class struggle that has always been a reflection of our people.

Undoubtedly, it is the moment work towards a sincere united front made up of all the progressive and social sectors in struggle to engage the colonial and capitalist crossroads that facing Puerto Rico. In the Island, on October 15th, diverse workers unions, community and student organizations will unite to invoke a NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE. New York cannot lie back without demanding justice.

We call upon the different organizations, individuals, and activists in the United States to help us fight and support Puerto Rico’s poor, working, and middle classes struggle to demand its socioeconomic rights. At the moment, different activists, together with the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Committee of NY we have decided to meet to organize the required support with the NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE to be carried out in Puerto Rico. Reason why, we invite you to partake on the protest to take place on October 15th in front of the Offices de Puerto Rico in New York (PRFAA).

By Yolanda Rivera
From the October 30, 2009 issue | Posted in International | Email this article

A STRIKING ISLAND: More than 200,000 Puerto Ricans joined a general strike Oct. 15.

PHOTO: SEIU INTERNATIONAL, FLICKR.COM

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO—In 1934, the year of the largest sugarcane workers’ strike in Puerto Rican history, Antonio S. Pedreira, a wealthy writer and educator, described Puerto Ricans as lazy and irresponsible: “To be lazy, in our country, is self-repression, lack of mental activity and freewill […] We are squatting before our future.”
Seventy-five years later, the attitudes of Puerto Rico’s ruling elite appear unchanged. Faced with widespread opposition to plans by Gov. Luis Fortuño to fire tens of thousands of public-sector workers and privatize government services, members of the governor’s staff have called workingclass Puerto Ricans “ticks” “garrapata” and terrorists and told them to accept privatization and layoffs because “such is life.”

Fortuño, leader of the Partido Nuevo Progresista (the equivalent of the Republican Party), was inaugurated Jan. 2, 2009. In his first 10 months in office he has fired more than 23,000 public-sector workers despite promising during his campaign that he would not make layoffs. His announcement on Sept. 25 that he was firing nearly 17,000 workers spurred labor, student, religious and community groups to organize a general strike on Oct. 15.

Fortuño’s administration reacted by stoking tensions. Top law-enforcement officials including the justice secretary and police superintendent threatened to charge strikers with terrorism if they disrupted traffic at the island’s ports. Independent observers such as the American Civil Liberties Union described the government threats as “dangerous” and “sowing fear.”

The week before the general strike, 10 campuses of the University of Puerto Rico closed their doors to prevent student protesters from using the facilities to mobilize. During democratic assemblies that gathered record numbers, students had already closed the main university campus in solidarity with fired government workers, including teachers, janitors and other service employees.

Despite the official intimidation, the demonstration and walkout went ahead Oct. 15, drawing an estimated 200,000 people and shutting down most businesses, schools and government activities on the island.

During the protest, numerous workers said the massive layoffs were part an effort to “sell the island,” — to destroying public services in order to justify privatization and provide subsidies to companies owned by associates of the governor.

One marcher carried a sign calling the governor “Fortocho,” a mix of Pinocchio and Fortuño. Another had a picture of the governor as a chicken with the question, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” referring to an unemployed worker who threw an egg at the governor during a press conference a few weeks earlier. Others chanted: “So, where’s Fortuño? Fortuño is not here. He’s selling what is left of this country.”

Many people showed their dissatisfaction by scrawling anti-privatization messages on buildings. Others wore masks of the governor’s face while they brandished fistfuls of money. After the march, students blocked the country’s largest highway and kept it closed until the police and some conservative leaders pressured them to abandon their efforts.

With a population of 3.5 million, Puerto Rico has been a U.S. colony since 1898. About 48 percent of the population lives under the poverty level and government layoffs, which represent about 12 percent of the public sector workforce, are projected to push the unemployment rate to 17 percent.

The firings were made possible by Law 7, which passed in March. It allows Fortuño to unilaterally dismiss public-sector workers, overriding labor laws that previously prohibited such actions. Union contracts are no protection either, as Law 7 effectively voids any job protections they may contain. What’s more, Law 7 clears the way for firing more public-sector workers by allowing for “Public-Private Alliances” — a euphemism for handing over government functions to private corporations.

While the governor and pundits claim the mass layoffs are necessary because the government is “too big” and is facing a $3.2 billion budget deficit, Puerto Rico is slated to receive more than $5.7 billion in funds from the U.S. stimulus package passed earlier this year. Fortuño also claims that private companies provide better services and that public-sector workers earn too much. Previous governors used the same justification for prior rounds of privatization that ended in disaster.

Pedro Roselló, governor from 1992 to 2000, privatized health services and sold hospitals. While insurance companies fattened their profits by delaying payments and services, enabling them to earn interest on public funds, the population has seen co-pays increase and intolerable delays in basic and urgent care, as in the case of cancer patients. Moreover, government officials under Roselló reportedly stole money from an organization that provided services for AIDS patients. In 1998, Roselló also sold Telefónica de Puerto Rico, a public telephone company, an action that triggered an enormous two-day general strike.

The following governor, Sila Calderón, the first female governor in the island (2000 to 2004), outsourced billing services in the Public Water Authority to ONDEO, a French company, which failed to meet the terms of its contracts but was paid $540 million. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, the governor from 2004 to 2008, privatized testing services in the Department of Education and signed numerous contracts for millions of dollars with charter school organizations while denying salary increases to public school teachers. The independent teachers union, Federación de Maestros, staged a successful strike and won salary increases.

Puerto Rican workers have also seen massive layoffs in the private sector as the economy has been in recession for more than four years now. The governor claims privatizing public services will create 200,000 new jobs by 2013. The government’s development plans include promoting medical tourism; privatizing much of the public energy authority; displacing poor communities to build expensive apartments and shopping malls; and a luxury resort, casino and marina on a former U.S. naval base. Few believe Fortuño’s promises, however, given the mass layoffs he claimed would never happen.

Laid-off workers have few options. Even if they manage to land a job, an abysmal rate of private-sector unionism, less than 3 percent, means few protections. Private companies will not recognize decades of service in the public sector, offer health insurance or match government salaries.

Meanwhile, despite promises of state support, fired workers wait in unemployment lines so long that people arrive the day before their appointment at the Labor Department to claim benefits; their only alternative is accepting a government offer of $2,000 to leave the island.

While a large number of Puerto Rican workers and students are resolved to fight the government’s policies, the movement is divided. The ruling elite are banking on this. Following the general strike, Fortuño’s Chief of Staff, Rodríguez-Ema, said, “I know we will prevail since the movement is divided.”

The most conservative unions and political organizations are allies of the former ruling party (Partido Popular Democrático, the equivalent of the Democrats). The conservative unions, some of which seem most concerned with not losing union dues, are affiliated with large U.S. unions, such as the SEIU. These unions are mostly organized under Law 45, instituted in 1998, which allowed for unionizing public-sector workers while taking away their right to strike. Many of these workers had previously been in more militant labor “associations.”

Conservative and moderate groups are interested in getting concessions from the government even if this means reducing working hours for all public-service workers or eliminating the government’s contribution to the workers’ health insurance. During the 1998 strike against the sale of the public telephone company, leaders in some of these unions and organizations demobilized a mass-based movement that put up to 500,000 people in the streets. They negotiated a truce with the government, and the telephone company was finally sold.

While the Oct. 15 mobilization marked a big step forward, halting and reversing privatization will require a still higher level of struggle. Independent unions, such as the university non-teaching employees union, called for a workers’ party during the march. The Federación de Maestros, the teachers’ union that held a strike under the former administration; the union of electric company workers; and political organizations such as la Organización Socialista Internacional and the Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores called for organizing from below. These unions and political groups, together with other community organizations and university professors (Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios), have supported calling a general strike in the future.

Yolanda Rivera is a member of the Organización Socialista Internacional. Lee Sustar contributed to this report.

Puerto Rico is experiencing very difficult times. Puerto Ricans of the mainland cannot remain
idle while Luis Fortuño’s administration moves forward with its widespread lay-off policy. This constitutes social and economic barbarism that will only serve to worsen the crisis in whichthe country is submerged. It will promote privatization of basic infrastructural services to thousands of Puerto Ricans, mostly the poor. Almost 20,000 civil servants already have or will be laid-off their jobs, putting at risk and hopelessness thousands of families affected directly and indirectly by this effort.

The colonial administrations, statehood and commonwealth supporters equally, are guilty of today’s suffocating working-class high taxes, the imposition of a sales tax and the partial or complete privatization of our national patrimonies. We cannot forget Pedro Rosselló’s administration, which privatized great part of our country, including fifty one percent (51%) of Puerto Rico Telephone Company and almost all health services providers throughout the Island. The Calderón Administration privatized the Authority of Aqueducts and Sewage, patrimony that we managed to rescue. To top it all, previous administrations efforts to sell Puerto Rico Telephone Company were concluded by the Acevedo Vilá administration. The transnational Mexican company America Mobil bought it. This unleashed a teacher’s strike, and an attempt to curtail workers rights and a few of the combatant unions in the Island.

That same administration, along with the Legislative Assembly of the PNP, imposed the IVU tax and raised taxes to the working-class while exempting special interests from paying taxes. To make matters worse, certain North American unions, with the aim of inter-nationalizing their businesses, have come down to the Island and have started negotiating our constitutional rights, curtailing the working class struggle that has always been a reflection of our people. Undoubtedly, it is the moment work towards a sincere united front made up of all the progressive and social sectors in struggle to engage the colonial and capitalist crossroads that are facing Puerto Rico.

On the Island, on October 15 , diverse workers unions, community and student organizations will unite to invoke a NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE. New York cannot lie back without demanding justice. We call upon the different organizations, individuals, and activists in the United States to help us fight and support Puerto Rico’s poor, working, and middle classes struggle to demand its socioeconomic rights. At the moment, different activists, together with the Puerto Rican Independence Party, Committee of NY we have decided to meet to organize the required support with the NATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE to be carried out in Puerto Rico. Reason why, we invite you to partake on the protest to take place on October 15th in front of the Offices of Puerto Rico in New York (PRFAA).

Puerto Rico is getting ready for the national strike on Thursday, October 15. Since governor Luis Fortuño layed-off about 17,000 government employees the first week of October, there has been tremendous mobilization from different sectors of the civil society: workers and members of trade unions, women, environmentalists, students, and professors, among others. There have been multiple demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience to protest the economic policies that the government has assured are necessary due to the financial crisis. In total this year, the recently elected government has laid off around 25,000 public employees.

In the last months hostility has grown between the government and different civil society groups: eviction orders in socially and economically disadvantaged communities, police brutality, and the dismantlement of community initiatives such as the Fideicomiso del Caño Martín Peña. There have also been a string of comments from government officials considered offensive and insensitive, such as the now sadly famous “such is life”, and more recently, when the Governor’s designated Chief off Staff Marcos Rodríguez Ema compared demonstrators to terrorists. This is the context of the national strike on Thursday. In response to this comment, Tito Otero has posted a video of a boy playing the violin in front of the Congress. We can hear the boy say: “I am not a terrorist. I believe in justice for my country.”

Bloggers and twitterers are getting ready for the strike which aims to paralyze the country for one day. In Cargas and descargas [ES] Edwin Vázquez has covened bloggers and citizens to use Twitter and Facebook to circulate information the day of the national strike. Already, the people at @caribnews are asking followers for hashtag suggestions, and the conversation has started under #twittericans.

This post is also available in:
Português: Porto Rico: Canal Público de Notícias é Desmantelado
简体中文: 波多黎各：公共新闻频道遭裁撤
繁體中文: 波多黎各：公共新聞頻道遭裁撤
Español: Puerto Rico: Desmantelan canal público de noticias
বাংলা: পুয়ের্টো রিকো: সরকারী সংবাদ চ্যানেল বন্ধ করে দেয়া হয়েছে
Français: Porto Rico: Démantèlement d’une chaîne publique d’informations
The newsroom of Puerto Rico’s only public channel, TUTV, was practically dismantled recently, allegedly due to budget cuts. The president of the Corporation of Puerto Rico of Public Broadcasting, Israel “Ray” Cruz – who was appointed by the government elected last November – fired about 50 employees, many of them journalists. The newscast, founded 15 years ago, will still be on the air for the next two months, at which point the lay-offs will be final. A group of reporters, camerapeople, producers and editors were not fired, but the future of the program is still uncertain. The government of Puerto Rico has already initiated a financial plan that includes laying-off approximately 30,000 government employees.

The very same day the public channel employees were notified they had been laid off, anchor woman Gloria Soltero gave a biting message to her audience during the newscast. The blogosphere in Puerto Rico has been loaded with comments on Soltero’s words, but first, here are some excerpts of Soltero’s message:

To those who gave the best of themselves for our newscast, in order for it to end, we congratulate you. You accomplished it. Some of those people are our President Israel ‘ Ray’ Cruz, who followed step-by-step the orders given by our Governor Luis Fortuño, who has let the people know that he does not care what happens to our country’s culture, and much less what may happen to the government employees of our country.
Remember, people of Puerto Rico, and you, Mr. Governor, as our dear and respected Aníbal González Irizarry [a famous Puerto Rican journalist] would say, ‘a country without press is a country that is enslaved.’ Mr. Fortuño: if your wish is to have an enslaved country, you have achieved it.

Solidarity cannot and should not be a passing phenomenon. Solidarity should be a way of living, in order to face greed, and the policies and practices that endanger our dignity as human beings. I celebrate Gloria’s and Ojeda’s [a Puerto Rican radio journalist] responses to the harsh actions of employers. Now, we must together transform the heroic episodes in daily work, in a mature conscience to be able to explain what is happening to us today and the future we hope for.
In her blog Hoy me desperté de arena [ES], I. Caballer writes:

The pain, the fury and the indignation caused by the lay-off of government employees is experienced once again by another group of Puerto Rican workers at the the channel of the government of Puerto Rico. This time, the only difference is that they could use a massive communication outlet to express their feelings and ask the country to take action and not forget what has happened to them.
Blogger Luis Daniel Beltrán comments [ES]:

[Soltero’s] response denotes the indignation caused by the closing of an information space that, even though it has occasionally been at the service of the whims of the political party in power, it has served the country, especially during these times of uncertainty since the beginning of this year.
This post was also translated by the author.
The thumbnail image used in this post, “television”, is by Walt Jabsco, used under a Creative Commons license. Visit Walt Jabsco’s flickr photostream.
Posted by Firuzeh Shokooh Valle Print version
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3 comments
Ralph J Sierra Jr
Totally irresponsible!! Kudos to Soltero!!

# 2009-08-21 At 17:57 Pm
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Andrea
Thank you for the blog. This news story was ignored by the US media. Thanks again.